In the Amduat, the night-journey of the Egyptian Sungod is divided into twelve hours, each of them containing an enormous amount of insight into the human psyche. The entire Amduat could be called the first 'scientific publication' of humankind describing or mapping the dangers, but also the regenerative capabilities of the night-world, providing answers to basic human questions. The synopsis of the different scenes of the Amduat, all in colour, together with its explaining text, is unique. This book is a treasure for all those who want to explore the archetypal structure of the objective psyche, with its helpful but also with its dangerous forces.

WHY THE AMDUAT IS SIGNIFICANT Every evening the sun becomes old and weak and finally sets behind the Western horizon. Yet, it rises again in the morning, rejuvenated. How is that possible? How could the sun for the Ancient Egyptians the Sungod become young and revitalized during the night, during his night journey? What happens during this time? The Amduat is a description of the journey of the Sungod through the nightworld, that is also the world of the deceased. The knowledge contained in the Amduat is meant for the dead Pharaoh. But the text also recommends this knowledge for living beings. Thus, the journey of the Sungod can also be seen as a symbolic representation of an inner psychic process of transformation and renewal.

The Egyptian Amduat, "Book of the Hidden Chamber", is a fascinating text from ancient Egypt that describes the journey of the deceased. It tells of a twelve hour long voyage beyond death through a mysterious realm known as the Duat. Most people are curious about what happens after we make our departure into the Afterlife. The most pressing question usually entails the finality of it all. Is death truly the end of life, the end of our being? Or is death merely the transition to a new place where we can continue our life in a different form? Unfortunately, no person living on earth is able to provide an answer to shine a light on this mystery. The Egyptian Amduat, "Book of the Hidden Chamber", however, provides a solution to this riddle as it promises that every human being, embarking on this journey, will renew himself to eventually rise from the dead. It clearly describes the entire journey after death through texts and illustrations. According to the Amduat, it was a journey which lasted twelve hours starting at dusk and ending at dawn. In the decade the author worked on this text, she discovered that the journey, as described in the Amduat, is a voyage of Initiation. During the journey the old consciousness, symbolised by the Sungod Râ, is dissolved and transformed into the birth and awakening of a renewed consciousness, which is symbolised by the God Khepri. The process is not limited to the post mortem state, for it occurs during life as well. Therefore, not only the deceased, but every living being on earth can embark on the voyage in question. The group of elite priests in ancient Egypt knew this fact well and used the Amduat to become initiates themselves. Today, the Amduat is still a system qualified to heighten our consciousness. The texts with the corresponding images serve as a guide to show the way to our goal. The inner Sungod teaches us how to navigate safely and transform the psyche's destructive forces into constructive powers. This life changing magical journey provides us with the opportunity to look ourselves in the eye, honestly and sincerely. It is a wake-up call to allow us to see who we really are- divine beings- and to become reborn as our Greater Self. This grants us the power to reconnect with our true potential and to manifest all our gifts and talents in life itself. The book, The Great Awakening; the Way of the Amduat, presents the entire Egyptian system in an unique and interesting blend of academic and esoteric knowledge, intertwined with the author's personal experience of the system itself. The text of the Amduat is explained in clear and comprehensible wording translated to suit our modern age. It is also a practical workbook to teach the reader how to embark on the Sun barque, together with his or her inner Sungod, to make the inspiring voyage of inner awakening. The subsequent gradual transformation and the manner in which it takes shape in daily life, is explained hour by hour from an academic, esoteric and practical perspective.

"The ancient Egyptian sources come alive, speaking to us without seeming alien to our modern ways of thinking. Andreas Schweizer invites us to join the nocturnal voyage of the solar barque and to immerse ourselves, with the 'Great Soul' of the sun, into the darkness surrounding us. Here in the illustrations and texts of the Amduat, threats hidden in the depths of our soul become visible as concrete images, an analysis of which remains ever worthwhile: even in the guise of the evil, ominous, or dark side of godhead with which Schweizer concerns himself. The netherworld into which we descend underlies our own world. Creative energies of dreadful intensity are active there, and only death, to which all must surrender, makes us truly alive by offering us regeneration from the depths."—Erik Hornung, from the Foreword The Amduat (literally "that which is in the netherworld") tells the story of the nocturnal journey of Re, the Egyptian Sungod, through the netherworld from the time when the sun dies, after setting in the west, to its rebirth at sunrise in the east. In the middle of the night, in the profoundest depths of the netherworld, this resurrection is made possible by a mystical union of the sun with the mummified body of Osiris, god of the dead. This great mystery of the union between the freely moving soul of the Sungod, longing for the bright and boundless sky, with Osiris's corpse, which is irrevocably bound to the subterranean realm of the dead, evokes the renewal of all life and the restoration of totality. In the Egyptian belief system, the pharaohs and in later times all blessed dead embarked on this same "night-sea journey" after death, ultimately becoming one with Re and living forever. The vision of the afterlife elaborated in the Amduat, dating from around 1500 B.C.E., has been influential for millennia, providing the model for an entire genre of Egyptian literature, the Books of the Afterlife, which in turn endured into the Greco-Roman era. Its themes and images persisted into gnostic and alchemical texts and made their way into early Christian portrayals of the beyond. In The Sungod's Journey through the Netherworld, Andreas Schweizer guides the reader through the Amduat, offering a psychological interpretation of its principal textual and iconographic elements. He is concerned with themes that run deep and wide in human experience, drawing on Jungian archetypes to find similar expression in many cultures worldwide: sleep as death; resurrection as reawakening or rebirth; and salvation or redemption, whether from original sin (as for Christians) or from the total annihilation of death (as for the ancient Egyptians).

This in-depth treatise presents conclusive evidence for an extremely close relationship between ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and the Book of Revelation. Practically all characters, scenes and series of scenes found in Revelation have parallels in mainstream Egyptian sources, including the Book of the Dead, the Amduat, Book of Gates, Book of Aker, Books of the Heavens and others. Parallel characters include Egypt's Apophis as Revelation's Satan while situations and activities in scenes include the judgment scene and singers by a lake of fire. Parallel sequences of scenes include those found in the 2nd to 12th Divisions of the Book of Gates and most of Revelation's Chapters 15-21. Allusions to the Book of Dead are common. Finally, a key conclusion: the entire structure of the Book of Revelation can be accounted for in the organization of text and paintings on the walls and ceilings of the tomb of Ramesses VI in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Fully referenced to enable critical review. See revorigin.com

This volume offers a survey about what is known about the Ancient Egyptians' vision of the afterlife and an examination of these beliefs that were written down in books that were later discovered in royal tombs. The contents of the texts range from the collection of spells in the Book of the Dead, which was intended to offer practical assistance on the journey to the afterlife, to the detailed accounts of the hereafter provided in the Books of the Netherworld. The author looks closely at these latter works, while summarizing the contents of the Book of the Dead and other widely studied examples of the genre. For each composition, he discusses the history of its ancient transmission and its decipherment in modern times, supplying bibliographic information for any text editions. He also seeks to determine whether this literature as a whole presents a monolithic conception of the afterlife. The volume features many drawings from the books themselves.

The Egyptian Book of Gates is the second large Pharaonic Book of the Afterlife after The Egyptian Amduat. The revised English translation is based on the German edition, edited by Erik Hornung. The hieroglyphs and transcriptions are given on the basis of a collation of the extant texts found in different tombs. The main illustrations of the text come from the sarcophagus of Seti I. The 100 scenes of the Book of Gates are furthermore represented with one or more colored illustrations, originating from different sources. With an Introduction by Theodor Abt. Contains Bibliography and Index.